Oh Molly I've fallen for you and your pistachio and honeyed apricot cake.

Pistachio and honeyed apricot cake

As an avid Orangette fan I was excited to read Molly Wizenberg’s food memoir “a homemade life”. It’s the story of her life to date and the recipes that have intersected it. It’s such a beautiful read and so touching in parts. I think I may have even had a wee tear in my eye at one stage. I would just like to state that this is not normal behaviour for me, I’m normally ‘ard as nails hailing from Glasgow and all that.

If I am being completely honest quite a few of the recipes didn’t entirely appeal to me. An example of this would be ranch dressing and caraway seed potato salad. However, this pistachio and honey apricot cake recipe plus her incredible ability to convey the nuances of people, time and place in prose more than compensates. As I’ve written before food has nostalgic and comforting dimensions and it is this that Molly captures so beautifully. Although this book is sorrowful in places overall it is a really charming read filled with warmth. Who needs prozac when you’ve got this and pistachio and honeyed apricot cake?

Pistachios

It’s a nice dessert cake. I’m not going to lie and say it is the best cake in the history of  all desserts but it does fill me with exotic imagery and was certainly good enough for me to eat 3 slices in one afternoon. If anyone would like my copy of  Molly’s book just leave a comment to say so and I can post it on. First one wins. Whoop: my first blog competition!

Pistachio and honeyed apricots cake batter

Pistachio and honeyed apricot cake

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg’s “a Homemade Life”

Oven set to 170 degrees c

Grease and flour a 9 inch round tin – I used a springform tin and it seemed to work pretty well.

100g raw pistachios very finely ground

150g plan flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp salt

½ cup of milk

¼ tsp vanilla extract

110g unsalted butter at room temperature

220g caster sugar

3 large eggs

5 apricots

1tbsp runny honey

Combine the milk and vanilla in one bowl.

Combine the flour, nutmeg, salt and baking powder in another bowl.

In a third bowl mix the butter and sugar together with an electric whisk until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, to the butter and sugar mixture whisking well after each egg.

To this mixture add a third of the flour, mix with a wooden spoon and add a third of the milk mixture then stir.

Continue this process until all the batches are in the cake batter.

Pour the cake batter into the tin.

Half the apricots and place them in the batter cut side up.

Add some honey into the centre of each apricot.

Bake for 35 minutes or so until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes and then turn out on to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Enjoy.

Goat's cheese, honey and thyme flower feuille de brick parcel (an ode to N.)

I think it is time I wrote about N.. I’m sure I have alluded to her in previous posts but she is long overdue her own dedicated post (if not several). I met N. almost 7 years ago through a mutual friend when we were at university. We were “set up” so to speak. From my end I would say it was love at first sight, we hit it off straight away. We mainly bonded over our vehement foodie tendencies and a true love of twee Glasgow indie bands (B and S, Camera Obscura and such like). I think for us everything we love in life is covered in a blanket of fluffy sentimentality.

I am deviating here. I want to tell you about the feuille de brick pastry or just “brick” if you are proper French. (I’m a certified Francophile but not French so it is feuille de brick to me.) It originated in North Africa but was adopted by the French when they colonised Tunisia in the 1880s. It is incredibly versatile, in Tunisia it can be used to make a pastilla, a richly aromatic meat pie. In France it is often stuffed with ham and cheese to make a simple family super. Come Autumn I’ll use it as a dessert, maybe stuffed with spiced caramelised plums.

Feuille de brick with goat's cheese, honeycomb and thyme

N. made this for me the first lunch I had in her officially “bijou” studio apartment in Bordeaux that she shared with C.. I remember over looking the rooftops with the warmth of the sun coming through the window.  It was the lightest, crispest pastry I had ever eaten and with the creamy/sharp dichotomy of the goat’s cheese it was pretty magic.

Normally my attitude to pastry is a take-it-or-leave-it-kind-of-one but after this I was sold. When I spotted the packet in the chilled section at Waitrose I was transported back to that November afternoon in Bordeaux with N. and C.. I knew I had to get it. I’ll admit the thyme flowers maybe sounds a little pretentious but their lighter, more delicate flavour is more appropriate than thick sprigs  for this summery dish, plus they are very, very pretty.

Feuille de brick parcel

Goat’s cheese, honey and thyme flower feuille de brick parcel

Serves 1 – yep I’m cooking for 1 tonight.

2 sheets feuille de brick pastry

½ log of goat’s cheese

1dsp honey (I used honeycomb but acacia could be nice)

a wee sprinkle of thyme flowers - maybe 1/2 a teaspoons worth

oil for frying

Carefully take the pastry off the separating sheets.

Put the ingredients in the centre of one of the sheets and fold the edges over.

Put the edges side of the pastry in the centre of the other sheet face down and fold the edges of the second pastry sheet over.

Put the edges side down in a frying pan with some oil over a medium heat.

Fry for a few minutes on each side till golden brown and wonderfully gooey inside.

Enjoy.